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                                                    Aug 15th 2XXX

It seems so long ago. So long ago that we last celebrated India's independence day! Every year when the clock struck midnight, there would be celebrations across the country! But does it even matter now? Cities, states and countries have long been forgotten. Castes, creeds and races were forgotten even before them! 

In hindsight, if I think about it, it seems like yesterday we were battling Covid-19. At that time it did not seem such calamitous. It did take a good 2yrs to get it into control with the vaccine. It was such a moment of pride for the countrymen that the vaccine was provided by India! Being part of the research team, I was standing on the podium with my colleagues when we were awarded the Bharat Ratna by our president. The accolades did not just stop there, we were given numerous other awards. Those were such ecstatic days! We were all over the news national and international. Hailed as Saviours, Messiahs and what not. Some local news also ran breaking programs on how our team was actually sent by God himself. (Sigh)

Who would've imagined the catastrophe that were ro follow. The happiness, the elation lasted not more than a year I think. In New Zealand, the first country to control the Covid-19, a new virus was discovered. A completely new Adenovirus! The entire world was taken aback. My team was the first ones to be called upon. It was hard the first time. We had given up everything for it. Our personal and social lives. And it was proving harder this time! We were about six months into the research I believe when we heard that fateful news. Thinking about it still makes my body shiver! Another deadly virus was found in central europe! This time a Deltacoronavirus. Over 8 billion of us earthlings were thrown into a fit. No one knew what was happening. Our team was asked to focus on the Adenovirus and a new team of German researchers were tasked with finding a solution to the deltacoronavirus.

What followed was a chain of humans finding a way out and nature countering it with a bigger hurdle. 8 billion of us have been reduced to just over 10 million now. After the 5th virus struck governments across the world started falling. There was little time to do anything. People all over the world started huddling into colonies, which got smaller by the day. It has come to a point that we are now a single colony! 

One by one I witnessed my team members, my colleagues with whom I shared all the initial hardships, the joyous moments and conquered numerous invisible enemies, losing their individual battles. Everytime a piece of me died with them. I wondered why I was being left out of it. The entire focus soon shifted to figuring out why humans were bombarded with such high intensity viruses in such a short span of time. Never in our history had this occurred before. Well, the research is still ongoing. I'm no longer a part of it.

Two months ago I was diagnosed with the latest strain of the XRS. I would've gone into the details of it, but that hardly matters now. That feeling of being left alone also made me think that I might be part of some bigger plan where I figure out the cause of all this mayhem and reverse it. Alas, nature is indeed a cruel teacher. It teaches us lessons in the harshest of manners. In these past two months I feel I have humbled down. The ego that came with discovering multiple vaccines is all but gone. As I sit here in my isolation chamber, alone. I can sense that I won't be able to make it to sunrise. All I wish now, is, someone to retrieve this diary, read it and remember me. That would be all I want at this time. I am not sure what would happen to humanity, what the nature has in its plans for us. But well, in the end, who does?